Justices' ruling on spending limits: Gov't by the 1%, for the 1%

Against the backdrop of a government shutdown plotted and bankrolled by a small number of affluent industrialists, five U.S. Supreme Court justices appear poised to further emasculate limits on what the wealthiest Americans can spend to influence the political process.

In continuing its assault on Congress' anemic efforts to restrain political spending, Chief Justice John Roberts' court has created a regulatory vacuum that threatens the legitimacy of democratic rule and requires an urgent response by federal and state lawmakers.

The high court heard arguments Tuesday in a suit in which Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon is challenging the constitutionality of a $123,000 cap on the amount any individual donor may contribute to federal candidates, party committees and political action committees in any two year election cycle.

In the 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, five conservative justices led by Roberts struck down any limit on what corporations and unions can spend on independent political advertising. On Tuesday, the same bare majority signaled that it takes a similarly dim view on limits to direct donations to candidate campaigns.

We've never been persuaded by the view, famously articulated in a landmark 1976 case called Buckley v. Valeo, that political expenditures are the functional equivalent of speech. But even the Buckley majority recognized a difference between independent spending and contributions to candidate campaigns, which justices have long agreed may be regulated to discourage corruption. Now, even that sensible distinction appears to be in jeopardy.

Voters need look no further than today's paralyzed Washington to appreciate the peril unleashed when a privileged few can spend whatever it takes to pursue an agenda long ago renounced by voters. Reports published this past weekend reveal that, far from manifesting a spontaneous collapse of bipartisan negotiations, the government shutdown is the culmination of a carefully orchestrated campaign by tea party groups that are committed to defunding or repealing the Affordable Care Act and are financed by the Koch brothers and a few other right-wing industrialists.

Through a spokesman the Koch brothers said they are not behind the shutdown. But there's no question they have supported the groups causing the stalemate that has led to it.

How many more such fiascoes will the public be forced to endure if the court rejects all limits on political spending? The limit on what individual donors may contribute to federal candidate is not at issue in the McCutcheon case, which justices heard this week. But even if those limits remain intact, removing the aggregate limit of $123,000 would free individual donors to contribute as much as $3.6 million per cycle, in addition to whatever they spend on independent advertising. It is hard to see how the court could give such super-donors free rein without making a mockery of democratic rule.

Whatever justices do, it is past time for Congress and state governments to start exploring new ways of restraining political spending, or at least compelling donors and recipients to disclose it in more timely ways - even if they require a constitutional amendment to nullify the court's misguided assertion that money equals speech.

Even in a democracy where the distribution of wealth was constant or converging, it would be hazardous to give the wealthiest citizens carte blanche. In today's America, where fewer and fewer citizens control more and more of the nation's wealth, the threat posed by unrestrained political spending is even more toxic.

-Detroit Free Press, Mich., Oct. 10, 2013

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Justices' ruling on spending limits: Gov't by the 1%, for the 1%

Against the backdrop of a government shutdown plotted and bankrolled by a small number of affluent industrialists, five U.S.